Essie Stay Longer Ultimate Top Coat

I paint my nails almost every week. I'm not a fan of gel polish or other long-wear polish options ie. dipping powder because of the removal process that no matter how tediously careful leaves them paper thin. This does mean that I spend a couple of hours a week towards having neat polished tips. For some background on my day-to-day in terms of my activities with regard to my manicure longevity with regular polish, I rinse and load the dishwasher, with serious, cleaning, handwashing dishes, and chores involving detergents I wear gloves and when I'm cooking dinner I wear gloves, I cook dinner 3 nights a week. But I do cook my breakfast and prep my lunch in the morning without gloves which involves a bit of chopping. I have short nails because I work doing deep tissue and facial massage. I'm a frequent hand-washer as well. I don't spend time soaking in the bath but I take longer hot showers. Essie is my favourite brand of polish because I like the rounded tip of the brush, that makes it easier for me to do a neater job near the cuticle. I have been using Essie's All-in-One Base and Top Coat which for reference starts wearing off at the tips in about two days. I usually do 2 coats of that over my colour and by the second day the colour is slightly worn off on the tips but not that noticeable since I wear nude shades. At the time of writing this review, I'm halfway through my bottle of Essie All-in-One so it's thickened and takes a while to dry completely. I read the instructions for Essie Stay Longer and it said to just do one layer of the top coat. So once my colour was dry and won’t leave imprints if I touched it, I applied a thin layer of Essie Stay Longer and capped the tips. It went on smoothly; I could see just a smidge of my colour come off on the brush when I painted the top coat. Waited for the top coat to completely dry and be non-imprintable before doing anything else. The next day I had a hard chip of polish come off on one of my ring fingers, so just painted a bit over the chipped area with my colour and painted over the whole nail with another layer of Essie Stay Longer. The following day I had another hard chip of polish come off the tip of my middle finger so I did the same thing as I did the previous day. The manicure stayed looking fine and started wearing off at the tips within a few days. I didn't have any more hard chipping that week. The next week I painted my nails I opted for two coats of Essie Stay Longer, to see how long my mani would last this time. My middle finger chipped the next day, so I fixed it up. And then polished chipped off the side of my other middle finger the next day and the tips wore off like usual. I wouldn’t say this top coat out performs any of the other ones I have tried from Essie. I probably would try another top coat I haven’t tried from Essie to see if it’s better than this one.

I'll start out by saying I'm a huge fan of Essie polishes. However I was a little let down by this top coat.

Pros: As per most Essie polishes, it was easy to apply and the formula settled well on the nail (no brush strokes visible). It also dried quickly, which is always a plus for me (nothing bothers me more than waiting for polish to dry...)

Cons: It's not a very shiny top coat (maybe less of a con for others, but I love a good shiny finish!). It also didn't feel like it extended my mani very much, I noticed a few chips and peeling around day 5.

I think applying a second layer of top coat a few days after the initial top coat would help extend the wear, but that sort of defeats the purpose.

This top coat has a really nice finish to it. My favourite part would be the size of the brush, much wider than other top coats I own so it makes applying a breeze. I did not notice it made my polish last any longer than my other branded top coats.

I find most top coats while they look good to start, don't protect the nail polish and chipping happens fast - especially toes, with the daily shoe wearing etc. Well not with the Essie Stay Longer Ultimate Top Coat!

I've had it on my toes, over a bright red Essie polish for two weeks, and no chips in sight! It goes on so easily - so you can easily apply a thin coat, with no mess, and the polish looks pretty and glossy the whole time.

I painted my daughters nails - and she's brutal with polish - and it lasted better than any other top coat - not 2 weeks but we got close to a week before there was really obvious chipping.

Really really love the high shine too of this top coat. It's really stand out. All in all - I love this Top Coat and it will be a staple for me for fingers and toes.

The Essie Stay Longer Ultimate Top Coat works much better than I thought it would! I've used a few different top coats in the past that claim to make your manicure last longer but then the next day, they're chipped, all that time and effort gone to waste. This product does the trick, but I will say it didn't really last 7 days, it was more like 6, but that's with me being fairly rough with them and doing everything as normal. On day 6, I did start to notice little chips but nothing major and they didn't annoy me enough to take it all off. This product claims that it dries quickly and I was definitely most impressed by its ability to back up that claim - it dried in seconds! There's nothing worse than a thick top coat that ruins your manicure because you think it's dry, and it's really not. It goes on fairly thick so you don't need to use too much to get results, but the quick-dry thing is definitely a highlight. Overall, I'm really happy with the product and will use it again - it's great to be able to apply polish and know that it'll last about a week with everyday tasks.

I am a serial self-manicure kind of girl, so I am used to doing a nail paint on an almost weekly basis. Having DIY nails also means dealing with the fact it chips quite quickly. While I have also tried lots of top coats in an effort to keep my nails looking nicer for longer, generally I have found them to be lacklustre in that they either look like they have a bubbly appearance, don't dry well, or cause the polish to peel off in large sections.

Suffice it to say I was very pleasantly surprised that this product does what it says, in fact, I am still wearing the same nail polish almost two weeks on - with only the ends slightly chipped; I've never had polish last this long. I am rough with my hands too, so I would even go as far to say that if you were careful, you could get longer than 7 days. It goes on flawlessly, and you can see the nice thick clear coat that it leaves, gluing the polish to the surface better, and is also silky smooth to the touch. People who have noticed my nails, think I have had them done professionally.

I can imagine the bottle will last a good while, as I didn’t use a huge amount of product to achieve the end result. I also felt the smell was fine, and not overly strong or chemical like. I will say probably the obvious, that doing this in really good light will help, I found I hadn’t gone quick to the edge of the colour having done it in lower lighting.

This is definitely a product I will continue to purchase, and add to my weekly manicure routine.

I tried this over my existing nail polish and worked well over a week. I applied 2 coats and made my nail polish look like I had spent loads of money at the nail salon and even had a few lovely compliments. Hardly any smell, dries super quick and goes on super easy with a really nice consistency. Would I use this again?? ABSOLUTELY!!!

I’ve always loved an Essie nail polish and this too coat certainly does not disappoint. As a Pilates instructor, I’m barefoot a lot and have to stare down at my feet more regularly than the average person so having my nails regularly painted and not chipping is important to me. This top coat was easy to apply and definitely helped my painted nails last longer without chipping and kept them looking shiny and glossy. Can definitely recommend as it’s easier to take off than gel polishes so is a good alternative if you don’t want to do gel or powder nails.

This top coat is a nice viscosity, glides on well and is super glossy when dry!! I didn’t find it any longer lasting that my other top coat - Essie from the long wear range but then again, maybe that’s a good thing! It dried fairly quick, touch dry within 10 minutes (still don’t want to knock anything!), but it did chip on day three. My nails chip super easily in the first instance so a full day wear is actually quite nice.

Overall, nothing to write home about but it’s good and does the job. I would be happy with this as a regular top coat.

Nice to apply as in it goes on smooth and beautiful, lovely and shiny wet look to it and the dry time is ok , tried it on myself and my daughters and it lasted really well without chipping even on the rough 13 year olds nails